At Placer County Central Services in Auburn, Calif., manager Leslie Blagg has been nothing but impressed since the January installation of her in-plant’s new C.P. Bourg two-tower collator/booklet maker with face trimmer.

“Prior to the new system, we had to have an experienced operator run a job on our older single-tower Bourg because there was so much tweaking on the setup involved,” says Blagg. “But our new system is fully automated, where you can push a button and go.”

While Blagg and her staff of eight were pleased with their previous 10-bin C.P. Bourg, she notes that the face trimmer and the 20-bin features on the new booklet maker were key factors in her decision to purchase it.

“We wanted to expand our capabilities and be able to produce larger booklets and prepare a better quality product,” she notes.

To stay competitive with local copy shops, the in-plant also heavily markets its services to county departments, non-profit groups, church groups, fire districts, schools, and even the local jail.

“We are very competitive and work really hard to be competitive, despite having the government overhead. Sometimes what we can’t do in price, we can make up for in our turnaround time,” says Blagg.

In March, the in-plant also added an OKI CX3641 digital color envelope printer, and an Astro envelope feeder, to bring more of its envelope work in-house.

“Sometimes it would take a couple of weeks to get a case of envelopes back. Now, our customers can get their order the next day—and sometimes even the same day,” concludes Blagg. “We kind of run this like a business. We have to work hard to keep our customers happy, while also watching our costs. It’s kind of an interesting balancing act.”